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Katie Bickell

Katie Bickell

Author, Instructor, Manuscript Consultant

Our Offerings

Award-winning author Katie Bickell regularly offers mentorship to emerging writers through both manuscript consultation and workshop facilitation. She is also available to speak at events and visit book clubs.

Please read below to learn more about these services.

Manuscript Consultation

Specializing in short fiction, award-winning author Katie Bickell appreciates the artist’s dedication to brevity while pursuing character and plot development, and offers substantive and stylistic manuscript edits to reflect these values. Substantive editing involves editing the structure/architecture of the work (macro issues of organization, including chapters, parts, openings, closings, transitions, etc.) as well as a stylistic edit (micro issues at a sentence level, looking at clarity, flow, and language).

Whether submitting a single short story or a collection, the author will receive a marked-up document from Katie to use while they perform revisions. Katie and the author will also meet either in-person or over Zoom to discuss the work and brainstorm solutions following the service, going through the edits page by page. Best of all – there’s no cap on time for this. A story takes however long it takes.

Please contact Katie to receive a quote on your project. References from former manuscript consultation projects available.

Contact Katie

Workshops

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Creative Writing

Packing a Punch: Big Stories in Small Spaces

Learn how to craft powerful narratives in as few words as possible from an award-winning short story writer. Working from a collective prompt, students will workshop a piece of flash fiction into a succinct-but-rich tale using a variety of tools. This course has been successfully featured in numerous libraries and for such groups as Alexandra Writer’s Centre Society, The Writer’s Guild of Alberta, and Pandemic University.

The details:

  • Zoom-based workshop
  • The workshop can be tailored to fit 1-3 hour time slots
  • Students should expect to leave the course with a polished piece of flash fiction, as well as a list of flash fiction markets open to submissions
  • Student participation and story sharing required (not applicable for 1-hour workshop length)
Book Workshop now

Creative Writing

When You Just Don’t Wanna: Tips for the Lazy Writer

Some call it writer’s block, others call it a lack of motivation. Either way, every writer sometimes struggles to get their butt in the seat. This lighthearted course will cover several ways to trick your brain and seduce the muse, even when tapping keys feels like pulling teeth. This course has been successfully featured in the past through Alexandra Writer’s Centre Society.

Motivational Tips Include:

  • The 50/10 Method
  • Dressing the Part
  • Timer Tracking
  • Scenery Switching
  • Silencing Software
  • Writing Blind
  • Dictation
  • Shouting it Out

The Details:

  • Zoom-based class presented with a live slideshow
  • The class can be tailored to fit 1-2 hour time slots
  • Students can expect to receive a Lazy Writer’s Tip Sheet and to share a few laughs
Book Workshop Now

Career Workshops

The High School Resume

A professional resume writer for almost 10 years, Katie Bickell helps students craft a work-winning document from start to finish by teaching foundational information and tips & tricks, as well as providing advice as to what to put on the cover letter, and how to prepare for the interview. This course has been a hit in high school CALM classes!

The Details:

  • Zoom-based class presented with a live slideshow
  • Class can be tailored to fit time slot of 30 – 75 minutes with time for student questions
Book Workshop now

Career Workshop

The Job Seeker’s Guide to Success

A professional resume writer for almost 10 years, Katie Bickell helps students craft a work-winning document from start to finish by teaching foundational information and tips & tricks. Also included: the difference between a resume and CV, formats needed for uploading documents to online job banks using automatic tracking systems, what to put on the cover letter, and how to prepare for the interview.

The Details:

  • Zoom-based class presented with a live slideshow
  • The interactive class can be tailored to fit 1 hour – 1.5 hour time slot with student questions
  • Students can expect to receive a comprehensive checklist to map their job search journey as easily as possible.
Book Workshop now

Career Workshop

The Artist’s CV

Often immersed in a culture outside of the traditional workforce, many artists don’t think about their resumes until either grant season or until the perfect position becomes available. At that point, they often come to Always Brave Creative for a professional resume.

An author herself, ABC Founder Katie Bickell has written CVs for writers, filmmakers, editors, publishing agents, and visual artists, and has witnessed firsthand the self-doubt that can occur as these professionals try to sum the wealth of their skill, experience, and credentials into only a couple pages – and often at high stake in a highly competitive environment. This class has been successfully featured in the past through Alexandra Writer’s Centre Society.

In this workshop, Katie breaks down The Artist’s CV section by section (including overall graphic design), answering the most common questions she receives regarding this topic:

  • What is the difference between a resume & a CV, and which one do I need?
  • Are gaps in work history okay?
  • How do I narrow down my publication list?
  • Should I include my employment outside of the arts sector?
  • How should I explain upcoming gigs or obligations?
  • Can I still list the experience if it wasn’t paid?

The Details:

  • Zoom-based class presented with a live slideshow
  • The interactive class can be tailored to fit 1 hour – 1.5 hour time slot with student questions
  • All students will receive a handy tip sheet to reference as they create their own artistic CVs.
Book Workshop Now

Meet the Teacher

Katie Bickell emigrated from England to northern Alberta in 1990. Her first novel, Always Brave, Sometimes Kind, was released on September 29, 2020.

Katie’s work has received several awards, including the Alberta Literary Award’s 2020 Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, the Alberta Literary Award’s Howard O’Hagan for Short Story, The WGA’s Emerging Writer Award, The Alberta Views Fiction Prize, The Voices of Motherhood Essay Contest, and two Alberta Foundation of the Arts Individual Artists Grants. She is currently contracted to ghostwrite a person of influence’s personal memoir and is the founder of Always Brave Creative, a writing and design company that serves job-seekers, creative writing students, and small business owners.

Katie lives in Sherwood Park, Alberta, just outside of Edmonton, with her husband and daughters.

Searching for a Speaker?

Aside from leading workshops, Katie regularly makes appearances as a speaker, reader, or featured author. Please get in touch if she can help you with any of the following events.

  • Workshop facilitation
  • Author readings
  • Book club visits (no fee for private book clubs)
  • Reader Q&As
  • Panel member/panel moderator
  • Event emceeing
  • Convocation keynotes

Book a Workshop or Speaking Event

Please use the form below to connect with author Katie Bickell.

Form not working? email katie (at) alwaysbravecreative (dot) ca.

    Upcoming Workshops, News, and Events

    Upcoming Course “From Crafting to Completion: A Short Story Intensive”

    Meet the 2021 Alberta Literary Awards Finalists

    Celebrating ABSK’s ReLit Awards Shortlist

    Let’s Write Your Big Story in a Small Space with the Writer’s Guild of Alberta

    Build Your Artist’s CV with Katie in May!

    Alberta Literary Awards Virtual Reading with the Finalists

    katiebickell

    Visit me on instagram!

    katiebickell
    Chloe’s first soccer game ⚽️ For those of yo Chloe’s first soccer game ⚽️ For those of you without preteens at home, this look means “stop embarrassing me, Mom.” 

Just kidding, all the looks mean that.
    For all the truth about how hard mean girl dynamic For all the truth about how hard mean girl dynamics can be (and are) at their age, the best part of being a girl is having that one girl beside you. #girlhood #thisisten #besties
    20yrs old: “I sleep in my contact lenses all the 20yrs old: “I sleep in my contact lenses all the time! Just doesn’t affect me! Weird right?”
36yrs old: “I looked at my computer screen for 15 minutes before remembering to switch into glasses and now I can’t blink.” 
#sandpapereyes #amwriting #blindasabat
    🎶I want a home with a crowded table, and place 🎶I want a home with a crowded table, and place by the fire for everyone 🎶 

Forgot to take photos of our “home with a crowded table” during a beautiful Easter dinner, but so loved stretching the holiday out over three days dyeing #pysanky with @lisasana, @liv.nich, Brynn, Caily, and Chloe. We used various teas along with beet powder and turmeric to make dye on Friday night and drew with the wax from tea light candles on Saturday and every night girls ran to and from our homes under the warm weekend’s full moon. The kids had such fun blowing the eggs that (thank goodness) we moms didn’t have to 😂 

#easterphotodump #eastereggs #pinkmoon #springsnow #homemadedye #easter2022 #crowdedtable #plantyourgarden #romantisizeyourlife
    A surprise gift from my 10 year old niece 🐣🌸 A surprise gift from my 10 year old niece 🐣🌸💞 @lisasana you make pretty sweet kids 🥰
    Woke at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Reor Woke at 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Reorganized the living room as quietly as possible instead. Willow managed to sleep through it 🐾
    I like my hair’s natural texture, but I don’t I like my hair’s natural texture, but I don’t give it enough love. Usually I straighten or blow dry or curl it away before I have to do anything “professional” or “in public” or “normal” but the kids and I call it my witchy hair and when it’s like this I feel most me. Tonight I’m teaching a writing class and students will develop plots as wild as my waves. Death to styling tools (at least today anyway).
    It is -12 degrees Celsius, and flurries in the nig It is -12 degrees Celsius, and flurries in the night left snow on the ground. But F’s tomato seedlings have sprouted so, you know, hang in there… 🌱 ❄️ 🍅 🌸
    My husband and I own a tiny ancient cabin just off My husband and I own a tiny ancient cabin just off the shores Lesser Slave Lake. At the age of 22, he bought it off his great-grandparents, Lena & Fred (RIP), just a few months before he met me, and who’s to say they don’t visit us still? The cabin is two doors down and across the road from the house I grew up in and the house next door to that one, where my father now lives. A three minute bike ride takes us to Freddy’s grandparent’s home (Wayne and Marcella), and to his mom and dad (Gale and Fred), who live next door to them.

In this cabin, Freddy and I sleep behind a curtain that hangs in the middle of the living room. When he’s not here, Chloe shares my bed. Cailena was conceived in the same bedroom she now fills with art. In the spring, we fall asleep listening to the squeaks of little things between the walls and I make a mental note to bring the cat next time. In the summer we throw open all the windows and doors and seek coolness beneath poplar trees, although in last year’s heat wave the kids and the dog found most comfort with wet blankets on the cool, hard, uneven floor under their beds. There is only space for a fridge in the utility room, which is connected to the bathroom, so you have to knock on the door before grabbing the milk.

This cabin was our first love nest, and now that it’s no longer fit to rent out, it is ours to warm again with children and space heaters and hot water bottles and hand knit blankets (me) and stitched quilts (Gale and Marcella, and some of Lena’s, too). Candles and incense mask the faint smell of the skunk that feuded with Willow and lost the battle but won the war. We decorate the place with antiques unearthed in the outbuildings, and mud new cracks in the walls and ceiling each May. 

This little space, chock-a-block with love and memories and ghosts and stains of what once was - a place where past/present/future feels to collide all at once - is one of my favourite places in the world, and is the setting of my next book, “Alskling,” a romantic, folkloric story that has so far proven to be my favourite tale to pen. I hope these photos show you not just a simple space, but the affection we have for it.
    Oh hello, Julia Cameron. I keep hearing it’s pas Oh hello, Julia Cameron. I keep hearing it’s past time we met.
    Great question from a @pandemicuniversity “Less Great question from a @pandemicuniversity “Less is More” Student: the difference between Perspective and Point of View. Here’s my condensed-for-instagram answer:

Perspective is the #voice that tells a story. The protagonist is tied to decisions the #author makes around language, symbols, and imagery when writing through their perspective. If your protag is a 5yr old and you are writing from his perspective, your word choices are limited to his experiences. If the protag sees something that is “sophisticated,” the author won’t be able to use that word unless the reader is given a believable reason why the child knows it. Instead, the author might describe the sophisticated thing as “fancy,” or “really grown up” to keep the childish perspective.

Usually stories are written in the perspective of the protag. This allows the reader to connect immediately, as they hear the voice throughout the whole #text. In a short story, this is important as each word should not only provide story details but deepen character development.

Sometimes a story is told from a different perspective. Perhaps the protag is a 5yr old, but the story is told through the perspective of the child’s adult self. Then, the author can use details that the narrator would have access to but the protag would not. An example that comes to mind is the film “A Christmas Story.” The protag is a child, but the perspective belongs to his adult self. Because the adult-self narrates, lines like “faster than a jackrabbit on a date” are appropriate even though the protag wouldn’t know what they meant. 

A story’s perspective can also belong to a secondary #character. In “The Great Gatsby,” the protag is Gatsby but the #story is told through Carroway. Word choices and opinions reflect Carroway’s character – not Gatsby’s.

A story can also be told through a godlike perspective who might sound like the collective voice of society (See: “Pride and Prejudice,” “The Lottery”) or an objective witness who reports without opinion (“Hills Like White Elephants”). 

(Point of view continued in comments)
    Starting the day off pink: tulips and a rose incen Starting the day off pink: tulips and a rose incense cone. #sweetstart #rose #tulips #spring #flowers #sunshine #incense #simplepleasures #morningvibes
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